Chosen by Fate

by Virna DePaul

  The words gave her the strength to try and open her eyes again. This time, when she did, she felt something jerk in her chest.

  “Yes . . .” Caleb breathed. “That’s it, that’s it.”

  Her lids flickered and she glimpsed light. Shadows hovering over her. Her vision cleared until she saw it. Her very own dark angel.

  Caleb.

  Then the darkness overtook her again.

  THIRTY-THREE

  As soon as Caleb got Wraith’s heart beating again and saw her eyes flicker with life, Dex had shown the club owner their IDs and cleared the place. Now the were glowered at Caleb, who’d gone back to kneeling next to Wraith on the bathroom floor.

  “What do you mean, you’re not going to call Mahone?” Dex yelled. “Have you fucking lost your mind?”

  Caleb glared up at Dex. “I’m telling you, it’s the best way. We pretend she died. That we both did . . .”

  “That might not be too difficult given the way you’re bleeding out.”

  He didn’t bother glancing down at the wound he couldn’t even feel. “It’s shallow. Hell, I can treat it myself. But listen to me, Dex. You’ve seen for yourself how Wraith has changed. She wasn’t letting anyone know and there must be a reason for that. And we don’t know what Mahone would do with her or the information. We need to talk to her first.”

  “You and Wraith saved Mahone’s life, and you don’t trust him enough with this?”

  “No,” he said calmly. “I don’t.”

  They stared at each other for several seconds before Dex shook his head. “We need to get her to a hospital. You revived her, but her wounds aren’t closing.”

  The were was right, but Caleb was a doctor and he cared about Wraith. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He knew what she’d want—time—and he was going to give it to her. “I know that, Dex.”

  “Yeah. Did you know she was changing?”

  Caleb pressed his lips together before reluctantly answering. “I saw the clues. I asked her about it but . . .” His voice trailed off when Dex laughed.

  “Let me guess? You got distracted? Because maybe another thing had changed, too? Her ability to feel pain? So you fucked her instead of figuring out what the hell is going on with her?”

  If he wasn’t so concerned about Wraith, Caleb would have met the were toe-to-toe. As it was, he snapped, “Back off, Dex. Now.”

  “I’ll back off when you admit your dick led you someplace your head wouldn’t have.”

  “And yours didn’t?” Caleb looked pointedly at Lucy, who was sitting next to the female vampire. The two of them were talking softly. A minute earlier, Caleb had checked Lucy and her vitals were normal. Her body was reacting as if she’d had a little too much to drink but was recovering.

  “I did what I needed to do to help Lucy. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’ll take Wraith back to another hotel. Make sure we aren’t followed. I can treat her there—”

  “Had much experience treating wraiths? ’Cause I think—”

  The vampire female cleared her throat, making both their heads jerk around. “As entertaining as this bickering is, it’s obvious neither of you knows what’s happening here. Let me enlighten you. The wraith is turning, but she hasn’t reached the point of no return. Not yet. Her body is simply taking longer to rejuvenate. Look, her wounds are starting to heal right now.”

  Both Dex and Caleb dropped their gazes to Wraith’s body. Caleb swiped away some of the blood staining her skin. It was subtle, but the vampire was right. Wraith’s wounds had started to heal.

  “You know what’s happening to her?” Caleb asked.

  “She’s dying,” the vampire confirmed softly.

  “But you just said her wounds—”

  She shook her head. “Not now. Maybe not for a few months. But she’s ten, and before she’s eleven, she’s going to die.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Dex asked when Caleb clearly wasn’t able to speak.

  “I knew a wraith once. She was . . . a friend.”

  The way she said “friend” made Caleb immediately think they’d been lovers. “Did you know the wraith before her tenth year or only after?”

  “After. I knew her only a month before it happened.”

  “I’ve never heard—”

  “It’s a closely guarded secret among wraiths. For obvious reasons.”

  “Do you think she knew? What was coming, I mean?”

  “She knew.”

  Caleb glanced at Dex. “What if she knew in Korea? And before starting this mission? Why would she—”

  “What else was she going to do?” Dex said. “Sit around and twiddle her thumbs?”

  Lucy moaned and shifted. With effort, she sat up and raised a shaky hand to her head. “Dex . . .?”

  Dex immediately moved to her side. The vampire smiled and rose. “You should sit with her.”

  In a flash, Dex’s hand whipped out, and his fingers wrapped around the vampire’s wrist. “You’re not . . . I mean . . .” He coughed. “You’re leaving?”

  With an arched brow, the vampire stared at the were’s fingers. “You don’t need me for anything else,” she said lightly. “Do you?”

  Dex opened his mouth as if to protest, then slowly released her. She continued toward the door, then turned to Caleb. “Has she told you anything about who she is? Any memories that she’s had about her human life?”

  “No. Does memory return in a wraith’s tenth year, as well?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question. But my friend, she was obsessed with finding out who she was. Became more and more so as the days went on. Is your wraith the same way?”

  Caleb remembered how upset Wraith had been with Mahone when he’d changed the mission on her. “Yes, only I wouldn’t say she was becoming more obsessed with time . . .” In fact, now that he thought about it, Wraith had seemed to become less obsessed with that goal. She hadn’t even mentioned it again since he’d found her at the bus station, but that could simply be because she’d agreed to finish the mission.

  What if finding out her identity had been more important than any of them had realized? What if, by dragging her to Los Angeles, he’d somehow turned her from a course that might have saved her?

  He cursed even as the vampire seemed to read his thoughts. And maybe, despite the fact that it would be breaking a whole host of rules, she actually did. “It’s what all wraiths are obsessed with. Becoming more obsessed at the end of their lives makes sense. If they became wraiths because of something that happened in their human lives, then—”

  “Why not link their deaths to the same thing, as well?” Caleb finished for her. “So what you’re saying is that not finding out what killed them as humans is probably what kills them as wraiths, too? That if they did know and resolved something in their lives, that might somehow stop the turnings and their eventual deaths?”

  “It’s just a theory,” she murmured sadly. “I never had anyone to talk it out with before. No one who’d cared for a wraith the way I had. But you care about her. That’s obvious.”

  Caleb was aware of Dex listening, his gaze still on the vampire. The were’s presence didn’t impede the swiftness of Caleb’s answer. “I care about her. More than anyone or anything,” he said.

  The vampire’s smile radiated both pity and compassion. “Then you need to find out who she is. Fast.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Wraith awoke in a comfortable bed with down pillows and a plush white comforter that smelled of lavender. The grittiness in her eyes and the fogginess in her brain made her think she must have slept again, but her body was achy and her head throbbed. If she’d slept, she should feel refreshed, not like she’d just been run over—if not by a semitruck, then at the very least a golf cart or an ATV.

  She scanned the room until her gaze landed on Caleb, sitting in a chair near the foot of her bed. His expression was grim.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Wraith?”

  She blinke
d at the anger in his voice. Instinctively got her defenses in place. “Tell you what?”

  “You’re dying.”

  Those two simple words knocked her defenses down with ease. Her eyes widened. “How did you—”

  “Dex met a vampire with a certain degree of knowledge about your kind. Do you even remember last night?”

  She struggled to get her mind working. Of course she remembered last night. They’d begun their surveillance at the club. She’d been talking to someone . . . Willie . . . no, Wilma . . . and she’d gone to the bathroom with her, right after she’d seen Caleb with the feline. Anger at the princess—at Caleb—made her hand itch to slap him, but then . . .

  She jerked to a sitting position, wincing at the fire that flamed across her ribs. Falling back against the pillows, she took quick breaths of air (even as part of her still marveled that she could), trying to work through the pain so she could talk. “The . . . the bathroom . . . Someone attacked me!”

  Caleb nodded grimly. “Emmett. The man I chased down at the restaurant. I should’ve killed him then, but don’t worry, I didn’t make the same mistake.”

  She swallowed hard. She knew Caleb didn’t take killing lightly. The fact that his eyes held no remorse told her he’d kill Emmett again and again if he had the chance, each time using a method more painful than the last. That, as well as his touch, told her he cared about her. Told her that kissing the little cat at the nightclub had been more about protecting the mission and Wraith than about getting his rocks off. Even as that realization spread through her like warm honey, she forced herself to think about the attack. The mission. The things that, unlike her feelings for Caleb, could be analyzed and worked and controlled, given enough information.

  “You said you talked to a vampire. Someone who knows about wraiths?”

  “She befriended a wraith right before she died. But I want to know why you didn’t tell us what was happening. About how extensively and quickly the changes were happening.”

  She plucked at the sheets on the bed, then folded her hands in her lap. “What does it matter? It was happening, and there was nothing any of us could do about it.”

  He stood, pushing his chair back so hard it toppled over. “You can’t be serious. Resignation. That’s your response? You’re just going to let it happen? You? Because I know what comes when this change of yours is complete, Wraith, and I’m almost certain you do, too. In case you don’t, though, let me lay it out for you—death!”

  “I’m already dead,” she said tonelessly.

  “Damn it, do not play that card now. I’m talking about the end, Wraith. Your end!”

  “And exactly what do you think I can do about that?” she snapped, wanting to cover her ears and hum to drown out his words. He was basically accusing her of being a coward, just as he had before. But it wasn’t cowardice to accept one’s fate. To give in gracefully and maybe—just maybe—even look forward to some peace. Was it?

  “How about fight? Search for answers? Find out who you are? How you died? Ask. For. Fucking. Help. From the people who care most about you.”

  Wraith snorted. “I tried that already, remember? This mission was more important.”

  “It was more important given the information you gave us, but you left a little something out, didn’t you? Did you really think I’d let this mission get in the way of saving your life?”

  He said it with such conviction. As if helping her wouldn’t have given him a moment’s pause, even if it meant abandoning his former girlfriend or risking the felines declaring war again. For what? For her? A female who was already dead? He was fooling himself, but he couldn’t fool her. “I don’t have a life, Caleb. I’m dead. Why can’t you get that through your head? Dead, dead, dead, dead—”

  His face flushed, and he looked angry enough to kill her himself. “Stop! That’s not true and you know it. I had your fucking blood all over my hands when your heart stopped, and it was still there when I got your heart pumping again, so don’t try that bullshit on me, Wraith!” His breaths were noisy, his eyes wild, his nostrils flaring.

  So she had died. And he’d brought her back. She shook her head. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said quietly. “We . . .” She swallowed and instinctively replaced the words she wanted to say with ones she was more familiar with. “We fucked, O’Flare. And yeah, it felt good. Thank you, and I mean that from the bottom of my recently revived heart. But nothing has changed. You’re alive. I’m dead. I’m probably going to die again really soon, no matter what you did to prevent it from happening in that bathroom, but we’ll get this mission done. Afterward, I’ll see what I can do about—”

  He laughed, a caustic sound that took the words right out of her mouth. His eyes narrow slits in his handsome face, he moved closer until he loomed over her. “You seriously think this mission’s still viable? That even if it was, you’d work it? The mission’s over. We blew our cover last night. Someone else is going to handle it.”

  It took her a second to comprehend what he was saying. The mission was over? Because of her and the damn man who’d gotten the better of her in the bathroom? Failure was a heavy weight on her shoulders as she said, “Then I guess it’s time for me to go.”

  Throwing off her blankets, she sat up, wincing as she did, but she breathed deep until she managed to get to her feet. To her utter amazement, Caleb calmly walked up to her and lightly pushed her chest so she fell back onto the bed.

  “Do not piss me off any more than you already have, Wraith.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think because you’ve given me an orgasm or two that I’ll even hesitate to take you down, Caleb.”

  He flashed his strong, white teeth in a feral grin. “Go for it.”

  They glared at each other, and she really tried to muster the strength to pop him in the face, but she couldn’t even make it to her feet again. To cover for her weakness, feeble as the attempt was, she said, “Did Lucy get any takers last night?”

  The way Caleb blinked instantly told Wraith something had happened to the mage. Her chest filled with dread. “What happened, Caleb?”

  When he told her, she shook her head. “Where’s the shape-shifter?”

  “Last I saw, Dex had him tied up and had called the Bureau to pick him up.”

  “We need to talk to him. Find out who he’s working for.”

  Caleb looked ready to throttle her again. “Didn’t you hear anything I said, Wraith? Let the next team handle it. Hell, Dex and Lucy can work the mission in some way, but you and I need to concentrate on you. On finding out who you are.”

  “Talking to the shape-shifter will be concentrating on me, Caleb. Because how do you think the shape-shifter took my form in the first place? He had to have my DNA.”

  “He could have lifted that from your glass at the bar. Or rubbed against you when he was walking by. We wouldn’t have known because he could have adopted twenty other identities while he was doing it.”

  “But why would he have counted on chance? Emmett was there to get me, and he got his orders from someone who knew I would be at Knox’s wedding reception. Maybe he and the shifter were working together, and the shifter had my DNA before he walked into the club, in which case he might know something about me that I don’t.”

  She could tell she’d said what she needed to convince him. She didn’t believe it herself, but if it got Caleb off her back and to the shape-shifter sooner, so be it.

  Suddenly, it occurred to her what she was doing. She was resisting his attempts to find out who she was. Because she really no longer cared.

  The realization floored her, and she had to brace her palms on the bed to keep from crumpling. Seeing Caleb in the bar with the feline princess and then getting attacked in the bathroom, facing her impending death—it had all changed something inside her. Or maybe she’d changed before that, when Caleb had taught her the meaning of pleasure and intimacy. She no longer cared who she’d been, she realized.

  She was Wraith
. A member of the world’s first Para-Ops team. She belonged in this world, and so what if she’d been betrayed by a friend or two? Big deal if she was going to die like every other human. She’d packed decades into the past ten years, and she needed to stop worrying about the past and the future. She needed to do what she was meant to. Hunt the bad guys. Stop them from hurting felines.

  And spend as much time with Caleb O’Flare as she could before she exited this life with some dignity.

  Caleb had no clue what she was thinking. He was obviously still focused on her statement about the shape-shifter having come to the club with her DNA. “Who would have DNA from you?”

  She almost smiled but stopped herself, knowing he’d view it as her mocking him, when it was really about her knowing him. Maybe even better than she knew herself. And what she knew of him, she liked.

  More than liked.

  She licked her lips and answered, even though her gaze had focused on his mouth, and in her mind she was already kissing him. “Colt, Ramsey, Mahone. And the mage who experimented on me.”

  “It wasn’t the mage.”

  He said the words with such confidence, such finality, that Wraith blinked. “How . . . how can you know that?” When Caleb didn’t immediately answer, she narrowed her eyes. “Caleb?”

  “What did you think I’d do after I saw those videos of him torturing you, Wraith? How did you think Mahone got me to play his stooge? Did you really think it was because he asked nicely?”

  “You found the mage?” Wraith whispered, the notion that Caleb had gotten even remotely close to that kind of evil making her shiver.

  But Caleb shook his head. “He was already in federal custody. Had been for years. He was a mage leader, however, with a lot of money and influence. He’d built a strong defense team around him, and that team had filed enough paperwork to guarantee the mage would die in prison before he was executed for his crimes.”

  “And you made sure that didn’t happen? You killed him? For me?” Even as she felt horror at the thought—that Caleb would have to live with the stain from a cold-blooded execution on his hands—he shook his head. Her brow furrowed in confusion.